


Ode of Diversion

by Kemis



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-18
Updated: 2006-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kemis/pseuds/Kemis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why did Nibleheim burn, and what did really happen that night?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ode of Diversion

Out of the cell, in the examination room. Out of the examination room, into the mako tube. Out of the tube, back in the cell. That had always been his life. Once in a while Gast had allowed him one hour _Outside_, where the only white thing was the snow and there was the sun and the grass and the air smelled funny, foreign with the lack of chemicals and mako. Then Gast had stopped showing up, and from Doctor Hojo's smile Sephiroth had understood that any hope to go live _Outside_ was gone. He was four years old.

There was someone else in the lab, though, beside the Doctor and the Assistants. Sephiroth had never really talked to him, because they were very strict about him not socializing with other subjects, but they had met, in the hallways of the cell block or passing through the examination rooms. More often they were put in adjourning mako tubes, and Sephiroth had quickly found out that if he listened hard enough, he could hear the man's mind echo through the glass. He didn't know how that could happen, or why - privately he though it was another reaction caused by the mako - but he had been very careful never to let that fact slip. It was his secret, his sanity and his haven.

And so, Sephiroth had started learning lots of things. He had learned that the man's name was Vincent, that he liked two sugars in his coffee, that he had owned a cat called Cat he didn't know if she was still alive, that he used to spend his free days taking long strolls around Kalm and he liked to collect tea cups and books. He had learned that Vincent was a Turk and that, whatever that job was, being a Turk involved blackmail, interrogations and killing people, and that Vincent had been very good at his job, that he had loved a woman scientist, Lucrecia, who was in fact Sephiroth's dead mother, and that he had gotten almost killed and imprisoned when he had tried to stop Hojo from using her baby as subject. That Vincent had been experimented, and that he had something foreign inside of him too, four demons in his case, and the demons hated Hojo as much as Vincent and Sephiroth did.

Sephiroth suspected that Vincent knew he was eavesdropping on him, but he hadn't been told to stop or felt like he wasn't welcomed, and that was permission enough for him. At five years old, he spent all of his time in the tube listening to Vincent's thoughts, watching his memories and learning about the red sunsets, the smell of flowers and the sound of the waves on the beach. He wasn't allowed Outside, but he had Vincent, and to him he felt richer and more soothing than the _Outside_ ever had.

He didn't know what went wrong, after that, why the Doctor suddenly got more demanding and ruthless with his experiments. All that Sephiroth knew was that he was spending much more time in the examination room than in the tube or his cell. Vincent's thoughts tasted like worry, now, revolving on how Hojo could get away with all of this, why ShinRa wasn't checking on him.

That was when he talked with Vincent for the first time. It was a day like all others, and he was strapped to the table, waiting for the Doctor to come and sew his intestines back in place when Vincent had been tossed in - likely while they were getting some other test ready for him. Sephiroth had felt a hand touch his, then, and the man had spoken. "I will get you out of here, at any cost."

Few days later, he had heard loud crashing sounds coming from the examination rooms, and an even louder roar had made the walls shake. After a while an Assistant had come into his cell, frantically telling him to take his stuff and textbooks, that he had to be transferred to the main Midgar Lab. Not really letting his surprise show, Sephiroth had quietly obeyed and followed the Assistant.

Once out of his cell, he had seen only ruin. The Lab was destroyed. He could hear shouts and muffled growls as he moved after the Assistant through the hallways, past the Doctor's office. That was where the commotion was coming from. Vincent was there, only he wasn't quite himself, all claws and chipped horns and broken wings, pinned to the ground by four Assistants and full of stunning darts. The Doctor was furious, screaming like he had never heard him before. As he was walking by, Sephiroth met the man's red eyes for just a moment before they closed, and he was sure there had been a smile on his face.

There was a helicopter waiting for them in front of the door. Sephiroth was six, and he was _Outside_. He turned back to look at the Mansion. He remembered the code tattooed on the back of Vincent's shoulder, and he remembered the name of this town.

One day he would be back.

* * *

_(Nineteen years later)_

Sephiroth waited for ten minutes after Zack had left the Library. Then he straightened, put the book down on the table and, after taking a bag he had previously hidden, opened the secret staircase to the basement. The memories of when he had lived in this place lead him straight to where the cells had once been. And here he was, his Vincent, laid out in one of the coffins, lab clothes reduced to rags and too many tubes and wires and needles protruding from his body. He was in an induced coma, like Hojo's files had said, and he looked no different from the last time he had seen him, no wrinkles or white in his mane. He was more serene, maybe, relaxed in his sleep. Was he dreaming about him?

The General took off his gloves and took a hypodermic needle out of his bag, kneeling on the ground to inject a reddish substance in the IV connected to his friend's arm to counteract Hojo's drugs before starting to untangle straps and wires. He had mostly finished by the time the man in the coffin finally started stirring.

Sephiroth leaned over the side of the coffin to kiss him lightly. "Wake up, Vincent." Red eyes opened, slowly blinking up at him. "You got me out of the Lab," he said, running his bare fingers on the side of his face, "and now it's my turn to get us out, at any cost."

"You shouldn't have come," Vincent whispered back, and even if his tone was severe he was smiling, and he was tilting his cheek into his hand, "but I knew you were going to anyway."

"Sorry for making you wait." Sephiroth smiled faintly too and kissed him, purposefully ignoring the bag falling over and spilling out the clothes in it on the dusty floor. It was alright to do that, for now, to smile and to forget about mutant alien viruses, about plans waiting for him come night, about the town he had to burn to cover their tracks and about having to gut his best friend and then deliver him to Hojo as unwitting witness of his 'madness' and 'death'. It was alright, because he had finally gotten his sanity back, in his arms, returning his kisses and pulling him closer, firm and soft and cool and achingly familiar Vincent, safe and soothing and welcoming and his.

That night, as ShinRa troopers swarmed the charred ruins of Nibleheim up to the reactor, no one really noticed the two cloaked figures that slipped out of the still burning Mansion and disappeared into the night.


End file.
